Rheumatoid of the Cervical Spine

I went to the rheumatologist the other day for a check in to see how the addition of methotrexate was working along with my Humira. I have been noticing over the past month or so that stiffness and pain in my spine was waking me up at night and in the morning my spine would stay stiff for hours. Something that I have never experienced before, it starts in the spine in between my shoulder blades and goes up into my neck. I constantly feel like I need to "crack" and rotate during the day and when I do it sounds like rice crispies. I brought this up to my rheumatologist and asked if one can get be affected by RA in the spine. He said it was pretty rare but agreed to be on the safe side and ordered some xrays. The very next day I got a call from the doctor's office telling me that I do indeed have been affected by RA in my cervical spine, right now it is mild but I can't lie, I'm a bit nervous. The night of my xrays I decided to research RA in cervical spine and the results were not pretty. It can stay mild or it can progress. When it progresses it compresses on nerves, it can lead to black outs, incontinence, paralysis and sudden death. Luckily for me we caught it, we know it is there so we can keep an eye on it. If and when my cervical spine becomes unstable there is the option (well to me its not an option see death is the other and I don't consider that an option) to have surgery to stabilize the spine. Yes there will be limited movement and other side effects from surgery but it is better than dead I say.

If you would like more information on RA in C Spine please click on one of the links.

http://www.uscspine.com/conditions/rheumatoid-arthritis.cfm

http://rheumatology.oxfordjournals.org/content/45/10/1183.long

Is it time? Rheumatoid Arthritis and Handicap Parking Passes.

If you had told me last month that I would be considering asking my doctor to sign off on a handicap parking permit I would have laughed at you, but lately I have found myself really thinking hard about it. I certainly don't need it all of the time, there are days when I can walk and be just fine and then there are the days when I am in so much pain that just walking 10 feet to the bathroom seems like a gigantic undertaking. Those are the times I need I would use it.....but I struggle, the internal struggle is real. I think about all of the people who are far worse off than I am, who literally cannot breathe well enough on their own to walk from a regular space, or those who are in wheelchairs? Certainly I should suck up my own pain and hobble a bit further, right? I mean it just hurts, it isn't like it is going to kill me or cause a medical emergency if I have to walk farther, right? But then there are those cases such as going to the beach, I know, you are thinking , if you are in that much pain why are you trying to go to the beach, right? Well many of you know that sometimes you try to be normal even when it is evident that you aren't, sometimes you do it for your kids and family and sometimes you just get plain tired of RA taking things from you so you give it the finger and go despite the pain. But the beach....yes.....15 minutes of walking from the closest parking spot you can find until you have any hope of finding a place to sit and rest. Then I could see using it....I don't know, maybe it is all of my years in the medical field that has made me stubborn to my own detriment....I just don't know.

Then there is the fear and aggravation of the inevitable confrontation when someone (with the best of intentions) rips me a new one for parking in a handicap spot that I obviously don't need since of course I don't look disabled and I'm only in my 30s....not sure if I want to open myself up to that. It's not that I care what people think, I just don't know if I want to deal with one more aggravation.

How about all of you? Do you have a handicap parking permit? What made you decide to finally get one?

Rheumatoid Arthritis and Alphabet Soup, um, what?!

First off, please excuse the appearance of my blog if you are seeing it and it is in shambles. I am in the process of creating it and making all pretty but I thought I would write first and decorate later, difficult as that may be for me!

 I'm coming off of a very long hiatus from blogging, I used to write a blog called The Retro Housewife which actually, much to my surprise, had a decent following. At that time I was living my dream, being a stay at home wife and mother, making my home a haven for my family, cooking from scratch, everything all natural, doing yoga, going to the gym,  just being as domestic as one could be without be an annoying Martha Stewart wanna be. Then....wait for it!....yup....RA. Well fast forward to RA, Celiac Disease hit but once I was diagnosed and went gluten free I felt great, RA was the down fall. Slowly, piece by piece, my world as I had created it for myself and my family started to fall away until I couldn't do all of those things that all together made me who I was. I try very hard to always be honest, authentic and real so naturally I shut down my blog because I no longer had anything to write about. I tried through out the years to start other blogs but my heart just wasn't it in, but now, six years after being diagnosed with RA I have found my new identity and while many of people will probably close this browser window after I say this....well I'm just going to say it anyway, part of that identity is RA, it is a sick person. No, RA and my other issues do not define me, they aren't the total sum of who I am but they are some of the blocks that build the tower that is me. I have accepted that (although sometimes, between you and me, I think I still have periods of denial-on the days when I am feeling well).

So why write about RA? Well, I found myself reading some other RA blogs and realized, holy crap on a cracker that sounds just like me, its as if the words are coming straight out of my mouth and somehow ending up on that blogger's page. That was a good feeling, knowing that I wasn't alone, that other people feel the same exact way I do. I'm hoping that in writing about my bad times, my good times, my struggles and my triumphs, someone else reading will feel a little less alone. Also, writing is a really good outlet for me so it is not completely unselfish!

Okay so now down to the nitty gritty of it.... you get the Rheumatoid Arthritis part but whats with the Alphabet Soup part? Well I feel that my family and I have turned into alphabet soup. Between us all we have RA ,OCD, ADHD, PTSD, TBI, NCG and the list goes on....yeah we are a fun bunch. My daughter and I are just the results of horrible genetics mixing, my husband, well he served our country and he is paying the price for it.

So there, my first post! Now I can decorate!!